Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Some rambling about New Year's resolutions.

Happy New Year! Did you know that 2011 is a prime number? It is! So is 2017!

I love prime numbers (ah, the small pleasures in life).

In past years, Steve and I have made New Year's resolutions.

Mine usually sound something like this: "This year, I will pay down our debt, bring my lunch to work, get out and take more walks, become a better person, and remember to bring reusable shopping bags to the store."

Steve's is always the same: "This year I will eat more bacon."

I'm thinking that Steve is onto something here. Rather than setting yourself up for failure and guilt, why not resolve to enjoy life more? Have a little more fun? Eat a little more (in my case, since I do not eat pork, proverbial) bacon?

With this in mind, this year, I'm making a conscious decision not to make resolutions.

Specifically, I'm not going to make any sewing, gardening, blogging, reading, or cooking resolutions. I'm learning that it's counterproductive to load myself down with too many obligations associated with the fun things in my life, the things I do with my "spare time." Deadlines and guilt suck the fun out of activities I want to enjoy.

This year, instead of making resolutions, I'm giving myself permission to have fun with my hobbies.

Of course, me being me, I expect that this will involve learning new things and challenging myself. But that's not required.

If I don't feel like putting in a winter garden this year (so far, I haven't), that's fine. If I do, watch out, because there will be some chard! Otherwise, there's always the farmers' market, which can more than satisfy our swiss chard requirements. And if I don't want to sew something, then seriously, why am I spending my limited free time on it? If I want to read trashy romance novels all year (unlikely, but who knows?), great! I don't have to bake bread, but I can if I feel like it.

When you have a ton of hobbies (as I do), you will probably hear people compliment your work with the stock phrase, "You should sell this!"

I take this to mean, "This doesn't look/taste like a hot mess!" and as such, I really appreciate the compliment.

But I don't think I want to make money off of my hobbies. I have a job doing something I mostly enjoy, so I know what that feels like - sometimes it's great, and other times, I'm working to pay the bills, and that's fine.

On the other hand, I like that I am not obligated to sew, garden, or bake. Life is full of obligations - real obligations - but there is no need to make everything obligatory. It can actually be really freeing to not have goals.

I do have goals (like remembering to bring those damn reusable bags to the grocery store!), and I keep working on them, of course, but I also want to leave myself a little space to do whatever.

If I want to run around and play with Joe instead of doing anything else, awesome.

Ugh, totally - resolutions, who needs 'em? Although a few years back I started making a list every few years of 10-20 things that I'd like to do, or do more of, or be... it's all about mixing up ridiculous giant goals ("be proficient in 4 languages!") with stupid easy ones ("get a pair of really good boots!") and starting them all with "I would like to..." instead of "I will..." so the pressure is super low and they're just all sort of sitting contentedly on the back burner as long-term goals :)

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About Me

I live in a creaky old Victorian house in Oakland, CA with my awesome husband Steve, five year old Joe, two year old Maggie, and brother Harpal. A local government attorney by day, this blog follows my explorations in parenting, sewing, and my many hobbies.